Trafic Law: Lagos Decries Damage To Road Signs

The Lagos State Government has lamented the high rate at which the road signages it erected at strategic roads across the Lagos metropolis were being removed by unscrupulous elements.

Commissioner for Transportation, Kayode Opeifa, who spoke at a news conference on the Safety Campaign Week at the Government Secretariat, Alausa in Ikeja, Lagos, southwest Nigeria, said many of the over 20,000 road signages the government had erected had been vandalised.

The state government has begun the erection of over 20,000 signages across strategic roads in the state as it prepared to enforce the new road traffic law.

Opeifa said it was criminal for anybody to vandalise the road signages, saying that government would prosecute anyone caught in the act, as much had been spent in erecting the road signages.

“It is an offence under the new traffic law to vandalise public property and we will not hesitate to deal with any suspect. We have also embarked on several lane markings to make our roads safer and restore orderliness,” he said.

The commissioner warned unauthorised persons who had been arresting motorists and commercial motorcyclists, popularly called “Okada” riders under the guise of enforcing the state Road Traffic Law to desist from such act as government would deal ruthlessly with such people.

Opeifa stated that the Lagos State Transport Management Authority, LASTMA, Vehicle Inspection Services, Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, Police and the Civil Defence Corps were the only bodies expected to enforce the law.

On the Safety Campaign Week, the commissioner stressed the need for motorists to ensure their vehicles were road worthy before putting them on the road for work.

—Kazeem Ugbodaga